My dads war story

My father died earlier this year aged 80 but before he died he talked to me for the first time about his wartime experiences.

Last year he gave me a which contained photographs,lettres, newspaper cuttings and other items from the war and afterwards. Some of these items had been kept by his family and some he had saved himself .

From these items my wift and I realised that my father had a significant story to tell from wartime.

My father was 14 when war broke out in 1939 and joined up in 1943 at the age of 18.

From the documents we discovered that he had been in the Tank Corps (8th Hussars) in Germany in March 1945 and had been in a tank which had been attacked and he was the only member of the crew to survive.

Among the documents we have are letters from the mother and girlfriend of one of the soldiers who died named Walter. In one of the letters from the girlfriend it describes how my father and Walte both got out of the tank but Walter was killed and my father survived.

Other documents showed that my father had been in aprisoner of war camp called Stalag XB at Sandbostel. I have since found out this was one of the most notorious Nazi camps along the same lines as Belsen.

I spoke to my dad about this and he told me something of the conditions which were appalling. He talked of prisoners digging their own graves before being shot. He told of how the Russian prosioners were very badly treated and how they had very little food and would share it round with the prisoners hwo had nothing.

My dad was in actual fact in the camp for about a month before it was liberated on April 29th . My father told me how the German guards knew that the end was coming and tried to befriend the British prisoners hoping that they would protect them from the Russians when liberation happened as they feared retribution. They even offered the prisoners weapons which the prisoners refused to take.

After the war my father returned to England before completing his service with a period in Palestine with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was also stationed at an Army hospital in Oxfordshire before ending his service in 1947.

My father was reluctant to talk about any of this but I'm so glad he gave me his papers and talked to me about it before he died.

I know his story is one of many thousand similar ones and it is incredible to think what these young men went throuugh at such a young age and we should never forget them.

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